Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Psalm 25:16

“I am sixty-five and I’m lonely and have never found peace.”  So wrote the famed British author, H. G. Wells, on his 65th birthday.  Despite his fame and fortune, Mr. Wells, according to his own statement, felt alone and troubled.

He is not alone, either.  Isadora Duncan, the great ballet dancer, admired by even the royalty of Europe, confided to a friend that in the midst of an adoring public, she was actually a very lonely woman.  “I have never been alone but that my heart did ache,” she confessed, “my eyes fill with tears and my hands tremble for a peace and joy that I never found.”

Many years have passed since Isadora expressed her extreme feeling of loneliness.  But how do people feel today?  Is not the world bursting with people?  Surely there should be a friend for everybody on planet Earth.  Ideally, yes!  Realistically, no.  People build walls instead of bridges.

Some of our largest cities, such as Manila, Tokyo, and New York, house some of the world’s loneliest people.  Are you one of them?  If you are, you have empathy for the seventy-year-old woman who finally told a friendly storekeeper, “The reason I buy my groceries one item at a time is, well, because yours is the only kind voice I hear week in and week out.  And so, I come back often to relieve the awful feeling of utter loneliness….”

The fact remains, however, that God made you, God made you to be a unique individual.  He put in your heart a God-shaped vacuum that only He can fill.  Until this vacuum has been filled by God in the person of His Son, Christ Jesus, you will always be a lonely person.  All the money in the world won’t fill the vacuum.  Even a happy marriage and a house filled with the laughter of happy, healthy children won’t satisfy your inner emptiness.  You were made by God and for God.  Therefore, no one but God can satisfy your deepest longing and fill the empty spot deep in your heart.

GUIDELINE #1: Recognize you were born with a spiritual nature.  Remember, made in the image of God. You are a composite of body, soul, and spirit. One of the reasons that God made you is that He wanted to have fellowship with you, and knowing Him doesn’t eliminate the need you have for friendship and companionship but it fills the emptiness within and brings a sense of peace you will never have any other way.

GUIDELINE #3:  Discover that there is a friend who stays closer than a brother. Though you may never have thought much about it, that’s why God sent His Son, who searches for the lonely-hearted much as a shepherd does a lost sheep. I’d suggest you begin reading the Gospel of John in the New Testament. It’s the kind of a relationship that is described in a song that was sung in the 1984 Academy Award-winning movie “Places in the Heart.” Written by C. Austin Miles, the words of the refrain go, “And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own.”  The one of whom Miles was writing was God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

GUIDELINE #3: Develop a relationship with God.  If this is entirely new to you, though you have never prayed before, quietly say, “God, show me yourself.  I want to know you.”  That’s it for today’s edition of Guidelines!

 

Resource reading: Psalm 69: 30-36